A GROUP of suspected drug dealers at Aflao mobilised a canoe to rescue four of their colleagues who dived into the ocean and swam away into mid-waters to avoid arrest, when a joint police-military patrol team swooped on the Abeliakofe Beach near the Ghana-Togo frontier on Thursday.

Two of them who were found in possession of dried leaves suspected to be marijuana were picked up before they could flee.

The gangsters later returned to the beach to create a false scenario that one of the fugitives had drowned.

That led to chaotic scenes in which the thugs went on the rampage and blocked the road by the beach with logs, burnt lorry tyres, and also vandalized vehicles, demanding the release of those arrested.

However, the patrol team faced them squarely and fired rubber bullets to disperse them to restore calm, after which personnel of the Ghana National Fire Service put out the fire.

The names of the two suspects are being withheld for security reasons.

Chief Superintendent Ebenezer Asare, the Volta Region Police Operations Commander, who led the exercise, told The Ghanaian Times here on Saturday that the swoop followed growing reports of attacks on “money-changers” and other crimes in the municipality in the past two weeks.

In a separate incident far away from the beach, a young man wearing a helmet was found lying in a pool of blood with a motor-bike beside him near the lorry station on the same day.

“Upon examination, we realised that his helmet had crushed at the back, suggesting a road accident,” said Chief Superintendent Asare.

He said that the man was rushed to the Aflao Municipal Hospital where he was referred to the 37 Military Hospital and then later to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital both in Accra where he was pronounced dead.

Chief Superintendent Asare said that the identity of the deceased was yet to be established.

The story was corroborated by a source close to the Ghana Immigration Service.